UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (02/10/88)
Could someone give a basic demonstration of how ARexx cures all
ailments?
PS My newsreading software here in IBM land is written in REXX.
ba@m-net (Bill Allen) (08/20/88)
Who can give a brief (or even detailed) summary of AREXX for the amiga. What will and won't it do for me? About all I've heard so far is it allows separate programs it communicate with each other. -- --------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: ba@m-net.UUCP (Bill Allen Beogelein) Organization: M-NET, Ann Arbor, MI ---------------------------------------------------------
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (08/22/88)
Bill,
I have ARexx but have not had it that long, but here are my impressions of it
so far....
Think of it as really a programming language! It has so many features that
it can be overwhelming at first... But it is not to bad... the manual that
comes with it in *MY* opinion is ABOVE average! Very well done!
It is an interpreted language no compiling is needed, the speed seems pretty
darn good! So the question is not really "what can I do with it" but really
what can't you do with it!! Thats my 2 cents worth... I am still playing with
it.....
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.ComJames_E_Gary@cup.portal.com (08/27/88)
It is hard to put it into few words. AREXX is a full featured programming language that communicates very well with the operating system. You could think of it as a very fancy 'macro' language. If fact if you get WShell, then you will probably never write another 'execute' script. You get all the file handling, procedures, parameters, etc. that you expect from a programming language, but it is trivial to issue commands to the CLI also. The integration to other programs is almost like another product. AREXX can send commands to other programs as easily as to the CLI, and with the library and header files that come with AREXX it is very easy to make your program communicate with AREXX. And of course, any two programs that communicate with AREXX can be glued together through an AREXX program. As more software sports an AREXX interface, your system becomes highly integrated and customizable. Even without AREXX interfaces, programs that are controllable through command lines are easily accessible. -James
rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) (10/11/88)
It looks like ARexx is really taking off! Practically every vendor I talked to at AmiEXPO is planning an ARexx port in their product, has one in beta, or has one that is released. Two noteworthy examples are CygnusED from ASDG and MicroFiche Filer Plus from Software Visions. CygnusED has turned out even better than I dared hope; I can actually make it into an Emacs, and it's amazingly powerful. I'll give more information as I integrate it into my environment. Give this product a look. MicroFiche Filer Plus has a very nice ARexx interface, the nicest I've seen to date (far superior to my interface in AmigaTeX.) Now I need to get a copy of Zing! Spell, which reputably also has an ARexx port, and see how well it works . . . If you've ignored ARexx in the past, give it a look. At $50, it is the *best* deal in Amiga software, bar none. -tom ;;; I have no financial connection with anyone mentioned above ; except AmigaTeX. It's just that the number of new products ; with ARexx ports and the new possibilities are just too ; exciting to keep quiet about. Bill doesn't even know I'm ; writing this . . .
new@udel.EDU (Darren New) (04/08/89)
I have heard many things about ARexx except for what it is and where to get it. Who wrote this? Where can I find out more about it? Is it comercial, PD, or what? Thanks -- Darren New
amiga@athena.mit.edu (MITAUG Staff) (04/08/89)
In article <12601@louie.udel.EDU> new@udel.EDU (Darren New) writes: >I have heard many things about ARexx except for >what it is and where to get it. Who wrote this? >Where can I find out more about it? >Is it comercial, PD, or what? > Thanks -- Darren New AREXX is a commercial product written by William Hawes. It is an interpreted program that supports a "port" protocal that allows different programs to interact. Programs that support this are said to have AREXX ports. The basic 'gist of the product is a very flexible method in which many programs may interact through a "script" language. Currently version 1.06 is available but a new version is being beta tested. I highly recommend it if you like, for example, to have and editor interact with compilers, AmigaTeX etc ... (these are typical application). I have no association with any of the above products, I'm just a satisfied user of AmigaTeX/CED/AREXX. Ric Carreras ARPA: carreras@lees.mit.edu BIX: carreras
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (04/09/89)
In article <12601@louie.udel.EDU>, new@udel.EDU (Darren New) says: > >I have heard many things about ARexx except for >what it is and where to get it. Who wrote this? >Where can I find out more about it? >Is it comercial, PD, or what? > Thanks -- Darren New ARexx is a product and can be obtained mail ordr from most the places that advertise in the Amiga Magazines. It was written by Bill Hawes. It is NOT PD. ARexx is a little hard to explain, because it does not fit in on simple category, like "spreadsheet". 1. ARexx is a fairly complete, user friendly programming language with the usual control structures, infinite precision arithmetic (for machines with infinite memory, anyway 8-), very good string handling including parsing of input strings, and a large number of hooks into the Amiga environment. 2. It is interpreted, but still pretty fast, and small. It can be used directly from the command line, so you can write great shell scripts with it. 3. It can talk to other programs!!! This is the neatest part. Most programs you use respond to some sort of command language, right? Commands like "next", "previous", select third item on second menu, and so on. *IF* the vendor of that software (let's use a text editor for an example) provides an AREXX PORT, then you can write Arexx programs that send commands to the software. You might write a program that *sorts a list of names* in your editor for you, or searches for certain lines and changes them somehow, and so forth. Notice that not only can ARexx send commands to these programs, but it can retrieve data from thos programs, too, examine that data ,and act accordingly. 4. Since it can talk to programs, and retrieve data from them, it can *act as a go-between*!!! Suppose you have a database system, and you know how to perform some query to retrieve data from it. Then, you could write an ARexx program to do the same thing(*if* the dbms has a port). You could also have this ARexx program glue that data into a file you are editing. Then, when you are writing that rport, and it comes time to perform the query and then insert the results of that query into your report, you just execute one simple ARexx program and ... Summary: Are you a Unix user? Then you know of the power of the shell plus awk, sed, grep, and the other tools. ARexx gives you much the same capability PLUS it can talk to multiple applications. It is a true USER AGENT. Are you a CMS user. ARexx is REXX, with Amiga features added. There is also a REXX for MSDOS (no talking to other applications on a single tasking machine, though). What about *if*?? Well, it looks like lots of vendors are busily adding ARexx ports to their next release, or have already. See the ads in an Amiga Magazine. Are we ever lucky, or what? This should eventually really pay off. One thing it means is that every Amiga product can have exactly very similar (so-called) macro languages---ARexx. Furthermore, since there only needs to be one memory resident copy of ARexx to service all those applicatiuons, we save memory, too. That's what it is. lee
bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) (04/17/89)
It is a port-manager as well as a script-oriented programming language. Actually, I've taken to doing all my programming in it rather than in C, but it is substantially slower than C, being interpreted. I certainly couldn't sell my ARexx software, but it takes a lot less time to develop, and I'm a professional C developer, having used the language for 8 years now . . . William S. Hawes P.O. Box 308 Maynard, MA 01754 $49.95 or so. Ask if he still has a deal for ARexx+WShell; WShell is a nice shell that works well with ARexx. It is less of an improvement of Commodore software now that Newshell is out, though. -- -- Brian, the Man from Babble-on. ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts -- "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of" -- THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
OHA101%URIACC.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu (F. Michael Theilig) (07/08/89)
I am trying to compile a list of programs that have an AREXX port.
Any assistance would be most appreciated.
Also, if anyone has any general purpose AREXX scripts, and would
like to share, I'd like to get ahold of them.
Please EMail me directly.
/* F. Michael Theilig OHA101 at URIACC.Bitnet
"There is no Dark Side of the Moon...
in fact it is all dark." */king@motcid.UUCP (Steven King) (04/08/90)
In article <5782@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> tcrevier@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (The Guy With Blue Hair) writes: >I am not really new to the Amiga world, but I have never really understood >exactly what it was that Arexx did. I have some programs that support it >(A-Talk III for example), but I am not exactly sure what it does. If >someone(s) could send me some mail, or post here a brief and fairly low level >synopsis of Arexx, it would be appreciated. ARexx is a programming language. It's nowhere near as powerful as C is, for example, but it's very good for short little script-type languages. On the Amiga it's primarily intended to be a high-power replacement for the CLI scripts we all know and hate. ('execute ...') One of the main selling points of ARexx is that it has hooks so that other programs can be written to communicate with ARexx scripts. For example, I've got an ARexx script that replaces the ATalk III "CHAT" emulation with something infinitely better. ARexx can also access all normal AmigaDOS commands, giving you complete control over the machine. IMHO ARexx is truly incredible at parsing input, at taking an input string and splitting it into whatever components you want. I use it mostly to write quick and dirty filters to get a file from how it is to how I want it. I've had experience with Rexx on IBM mainframes, where it was born and raised. ARexx seems to be quite a faithful implementation, and is in some ways easier to use. (Ever try to use EXECIO on an IBM mainframe? *shudder*) The manual that comes with ARexx is an excellent reference manual, but it's NOT a tutorial. Personally, I perfer learning from reference manuals, but that's not for everyone. And like I said, I already knew Rexx before I laid eyes on ARexx... While I said ARexx is best for short little scripts, I don't mean to imply that that's all it's good for. I've seen some truly incredible uses of Rexx on the IBMs, including a full-featured multi-user chat host program and several end-user chat programs. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the RELAY code on Bitnet is written in Rexx. It's quite powerful once you get the hang of it. -- ---------------------------------------------------+--------------------------- If all you do in life are important things, then | Steve King (708) 991-8056 you'll never have any fun -- unless having fun | ...uunet!motcid!king is an important thing to you. | ...ddsw1!palnet!stevek
xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Nigel Tzeng) (04/09/90)
In article <2159@grape3.UUCP>, king@motcid.UUCP (Steven King) writes... ^I've had experience with Rexx on IBM mainframes, where it was born and ^raised. ARexx seems to be quite a faithful implementation, and is in some ^ways easier to use. (Ever try to use EXECIO on an IBM mainframe? *shudder*) ^The manual that comes with ARexx is an excellent reference manual, but ^it's NOT a tutorial. Personally, I perfer learning from reference manuals, ^but that's not for everyone. And like I said, I already knew Rexx before ^I laid eyes on ARexx... ^ ^While I said ARexx is best for short little scripts, I don't mean to imply ^that that's all it's good for. I've seen some truly incredible uses of ^Rexx on the IBMs, including a full-featured multi-user chat host program ^and several end-user chat programs. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but ^I think the RELAY code on Bitnet is written in Rexx. It's quite powerful ^once you get the hang of it. ^ If I remember correctly the early RELAY code was written in EXEC2 (I might actually have some on hardcopy somewhere...yuk) and later when Rexx appeared at more sites it was done in Rexx. I remember those days... Ah wait: Amiga Content - I just bought ARexx and my Rexx is a bit rusty (always did EXEC2 becuase it ran faster)...do you know of a tutorial I can run through? Thanks, Nigel Tzeng -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A| Nigel Tzeng - STX Inc. - xrtnt@csdr.gsfc.nasa.gov // m| // i| Standard Disclaimer Applies: The opinions expressed are my own. \\ // g| \X/ a| "Producing a system from specifications is like walking on water... | It's a helluva lot easier if it's frozen" - Seen on a wall... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------